Doing Battle, Week 46

Before cancer, Shaun used to have time for and care about what was happening in the sports world. Often, he'd listen to sports talk radio while driving or working. When a caller calls in to give their two cents and its their first time, they generally make a big deal out of it. This is my first time calling! Other callers will say, First time, long time, meaning 'this is the first time I've called in a long time'.

What is a long time? Its a relative term, of course, but for the purposes of this blog post we're going to say five weeks. This week I had quite a few 'first time, long times':

• We had an appointment with the surgeon and got GOOD news. The drain was ready to come out and with a quick phone call she got permission to pull it right there, saving us a hassle at the Interventional Radiology clinic. Also, the process to remove it is generally quick but quite painful...this time I barely felt it.
• I drove the car! I don't know how your household works, but one of my jobs is to taxi the kids around. Imagine having four kids and not being able to drive for five weeks. That means a stripped-down schedule and a lot of people stepping in and helping out! Its painful to sit in the car, but I can get short distances on my own.
• I worked out. Modified, upper body, light weights, sucking wind, sore for two days after, but I did it. Twice actually.
• For a variety of reasons that made sense at the time, I had requested no visitors at the hospital (it was only for four days, after all ;). I've slowly started to see family that I hadn't seen in well over five weeks.
• I was free of tubes/wires for 24 hours, after the drain came off and before the vac went back on.
• I got dressed in something other than a hospital gown or my husbands clothes. I went into the office with him for just a couple hours, so I had to look the part.

How am I feeling? Better and better! My strength and energy seem to grow each day, the pain is usually manageable with Tylenol, I sleep well at night. It still feels like we have so far to go and my patience grows thin with the process that I feel I've been patient enough with. I'm told at some point the healing really speeds up and progress happens rapidly. Anytime now! :)

The visiting nurse comes three days a week to change the wound vac. I have more or less the same nurse coming each time and she is both competent and lovely. They did a little tweaking on how they do the vac so its not causing me as much pain as it was (yay!).

I get out and walk several times a day, further and further. Almost always a kid or two will join me, Aiden prefers it when its just the two of us. He always grabs for my hand and my heart melts when he nuzzles it.

As a family, we're still recovering from the trauma that was the month of July. Twice this week, we were all in bed by 7 pm....part of that is just everything catching up with us. It still feels like a novelty to be home and we express gratefulness each day that I'm here and not there.

God is showing himself to be faithful, providing for our needs and being a refuge. We continue to trust Him with our story...HIStory!